


Five Hours Home

by deathtodickens



Series: Unscenes: A Canon-ish Fix [2]
Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 14:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1608341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathtodickens/pseuds/deathtodickens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place during 2x12 "Reset" because I have always wondered what happened between Myka talking Helena down, and Helena being escorted away from the warehouse.  I mean, they had to get back to the warehouse somehow, right?  Right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Hours Home

**Author's Note:**

> Clearly these characters are not mine. I'm just doing with them whatever I please. If there are inaccuracies, I am afraid I cannot apologize for that, but hopefully they don't ruin the entire experience. Any and all feedback is welcome, I am just beginning my excursion into fan fiction and these faux deleted scenes are kind of my favorite.

"I’m guessing everything is well, since it’s still a balmy 89 degrees here in BFEville?"

"Everything is," I glance to a sobbing HG Wells, still crying and hiding her face while collapsed on the ground, and change my train of thought, "let’s just say, the threat has been neutralized."

Even in turmoil, she manages to look beautiful. It’s bordering on annoying.

"HG. Is she?" The worry in Claudia’s voice is endearing, and careful. Her thoughtfulness, asking about the well being of a mad woman who had just set out to destroy the world, reminds me why I love her. That beautiful little brain of hers, forever attached to and working in synchronicity with her too-big heart.

"Don’t ever change, Claudia." I say, smiling for what I’m sure is the first time today. "She’s alive.

"Is Artie pissed?" Claudia’s look, from what I can tell on the limiting black and white screen, is hopeful but then she rolls her eyes. "What am I saying? He’s going to _murder_ her. _If_ the Regents don’t re-bronze her first."

"Don’t worry, Claud, he’s currently being life-flighted to the nearest hospital for a gunshot wound to the shoulder." The look that appears on Claud’s face pales and silently begs for an explanation. "It’s mostly superficial. I mean, non-life-threatening but it was the fastest way off this God-forsaken rock."

"She  _shot_ him? Oh, he’s really going to be pissed."

"Well, _technically_ , he shot himself but that’s a story for another day. Claud, I just need you to do me a favor. Where’s Pete?"

"He and Kelly are having a major post artifact break up sesh right now." She looks somewhere behind her and then whispers, "It’s serious."

My heart sinks thinking of the fallout. My first thought is to have Lena play clean up in the B&B.

"Okay, well, I need you to tell him everything is fine here. I’m bringing HG back to the warehouse and I’ll forward you both an itinerary once I book the flight. Just don’t let him get all worked up about it."

"Contain the Pete. Got it."

"And have Lena clean out any stray drop of alcohol in the B&B."

"Right." That seems to deflate her typically optimistic attitude.

"With any luck, we can fly out today. Otherwise, I will be driving through the night."

"Oh Myka, I am _pretty_ sure I can disappear a few extra seats on the flight of your choice, should it come down to that. Matter of fact, let me take care of your flight. What’s your ETA to the airport?"

"It’s about a half hour hike to the damn car, and another hour to the airport."

"Got it. I’ll get back to you on that shortly."

"Claud. I love you. You  _are_ the best."

"Oh, stop. Stop it. Tears don’t exactly work with what I’m wearing today, Myka."

I laugh through tears of my own.

"Bye, Claud."

"Wait, one more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Look.  Myka.  I don’t know what went down there and I’m sure that HG deserves all the rage in the world, like literally the whole world, _especially_ from you, but I just…"  She goes quiet for a moment, her eyes falling to the ground beside her.

"Claudia?"  
  
Her eyes seem to refocus with renewed inspiration.

"Just remember who she was before the trigger. She’s got a lot of shit to sort through. Over a century of shit, Myka. And she has to do it all alone, in a fucking futuristic wasteland of perpetual disappointment."

"But she wasn’t alone, Claud." My heart actually aches at that. She had all of us. She had me. "Was she?"

I know it sounds too challenging, and I'm asking it more of the woman beside me than I am of the young woman whose image flickers before me.  Still, she responds:

"Hey I get it, Myka. I get _that_ , but you know what I don’t get?" I’m shaking my head, training the look of stoicism on my face so that it’s slightly more convincing, and she continues. "Nineteenth century London. Raising a child alone. Losing that child alone. Time machines that actually fucking work but not _good_ enough. Being indirectly responsible for the death of your partner. Enacting your revenge on the men who murdered your child." She slows to a stop, her face quizzical, like she still can’t believe it as she’s saying it, and if not for the evidence of a completely broken woman, falling apart just steps away from me, I'd have trouble believing it, too.  "Having so much fucking hate and pain in your heart that you volunteer to be bronzed for an indefinite number of years, and returning to a world that, after two world wars and an infinite number of meaningless deaths at the hands of others, has proven itself catastrophic by the nature of its inhabitants, and only getting worse."

She takes a deep breath and only then do I notice the fallen tears that have warped the view of her on my Farnsworth. I wipe them away, quickly, and look back at Helena who has stopped sobbing. Helena who is staring up at me, or the Farnsworth, impossibly. Helena, whose tears still cascade down her cheeks, face entirely flushed, her breathing softened and steadied.

When her eyes catch mine, she immediately lowers her head to stare at the cuffs on her wrists, but she brings her hands to her face to wipe at tears and, instinctively, I do the same of my own tears.

"I’ve been in the nut house before, Myka." Claudia’s voice pulls my gaze back to the screen. "I know what it’s like to have people look at you, judging you, because they just don’t  _get_ it. And I’m not saying you never got HG, Mykes. I’m just saying, maybe you’re one of the few, and maybeyou, alone, weren’t enough for 150 years of bullshit, but whatever happened there, it’s not an accident that _you_ are the one there with her now. I know that. Artie knows that. I bet HG knows that, otherwise we would all be human popsicles by now."

She sighs shaking her head.

"I just figured you should know it, too."

_God fucking damnit, Claudia!_

It's what I want to yell.

_Goddamn you and your ability to peel back layers of a woman I sometimes I feel that I can barely begin to understand._

A rush of guilt cools my blood, gives me chills; makes me want to throw something. I imagine it perfectly, throwing the Farnsworth against the hard rock upon which I’m standing. The force alone might finish the job that Helena started.

"Now I love _and_ hate you." I tell Claudia with a small smile on my face. "We’ll be home soon." I close the Farnsworth on the devilish smile that plays across her face and shake her speech from my head in a desperate attempt at self-motivation.  Of course, the words are still there, unbidden.

Why did Artie have to shoot her? He could be the one left alone with her here. I decide I’ll be decisive if not a little aggressive, because moving quickly and avoiding anymore eye contact with her is the only way I’m going to get through this alive. Sane.

I step to her fast, still kneeling on the ground and staring at my handcuffs on her wrists.

 _I never imagined you wearing my cuffs like_ this _, Helena._

I don’t smile at the thought, even though I want to. The rush of newly warmed blood through my body just cannot be helped.

I lift her to her feet with a hand under her arm. “I almost wish you had shot me.” I say it quietly, under mumbled breath, but the way her head snaps to me is evidence enough that she’s heard me. Her mouth falls open, as if to speak, but nothing comes out and she immediately closes it, in favor of staring at the side of my face as I look away.

I pull her forward, maybe too forcefully, but the car is down a rocky path and the sun is falling quickly through dissipating clouds, all remnants of the storm she nearly summoned in her rage. The air has a chill that neither of us is equipped to handle for long, so the faster we get to the car, with it’s heated leather seats, the better.

We walk and I'm imaging us doing normal things, like overnight camping, assembling a tent, sharing a sleeping bag, combating the chill in more creative ways.

I shake away those thoughts, too.

 

Halfway down the rock, I think I pull too hard, or I'm walking too fast, and she trips, falling forward and breaking most of the fall with her knees as they skid into small rocks and dirt.

"Helena!"  I gasp and it’s involuntary, the concern in my voice as she cries out in pain. "Helena." She bends forward and begins sobbing into the dirt, her body reacting almost violently to every gasp for air, as if she can barely breathe but resents every inhalation that passes through her lungs.

I kneel down in front of her, reaching out to smooth hair that she has pulled into a ponytail, but think better of it.  I touch my hand to her arm, instead.  Even this is too sentimental.

"I’m…" I stop the apology short. "I need you to stand up. We have to get to the car."  _Because the last thing I need is to be lost in the wilderness with you._

Obviously, I don't say that last part aloud.

"Kill me."

It’s barely audible through her sobbing but suddenly she’s upright again and her hands, still bound at the wrists, are clutching on to my left arm with a forceful grip.

"Save yourself the trip." She sobs, her face a mess of tears mixed with snot and dirt, and small pebbles stuck to her forehead, a random leaf in her hair.  And she's still beautiful.  I definitely hate her more now.

I reach up to remove the offending plant life.

"Kill me, Myka."

"Stop." It comes out sounding about as enraged as I'm beginning to feel.

Her eyes widen.  Catastrophic, it's the only explanation I have for this look.

"You don’t get to say those things to me." The anger returns to me through increased adrenaline, my chest tightens, more tears burning in my eyes as I try desperately to hold onto this. "You don’t get to ask that of me, and you don’t get to say my name." I look away as my tears fall and wipe them away quickly. "My name," I look back to her, into those reddened eyes, and pray the look on my face is as enraged as I need it to be right now, to get this point across, to make myself look strong enough for this, "doesn’t leave your lips. Not like you’re a friend to me. Not like you care about me. Not asking me to… end you."

I shake my head and with renewed courage, I pull myself onto my feet, grabbing her arm and forcing her to stand up, as well. A soft muffled groan escapes her as she adjusts to the pain in her newly ruined pants and, no doubt, tortured knees.

"I’m not going to make this easy for you." Suddenly, I know what to say to her as the car comes into view across a field and in a nearby parking lot, and the worry of being stranded with her dissipates. "I refuse to make this easy for you. And it’s not just for me. It’s for those three boys who died in Egypt doing your dirty work. For the little girl who lost her big brother through your selfishness. For Artie, even though I’m still kind of pissed at him for shooting at you. For Claudia, because she looked up to you, she even admired you.  But mostly for Pete, because you meddled, Helena." I choke back more tears. "You meddled into his life, messed with his happiness, and quite possibly destroyed something really good. Something that was really _really_ good for him."

"I never meant to…"

"No!" I stop and turn to her. "You don’t get to talk now, Helena!" She bites her bottom lip shut. I have to look away, and I continue our trek to car.

Almost there.

"And you don’t get to ask me to end you." I add, with a slight laugh at the irony. "You don’t get to come into my life and make me happy and be _everything_." I inhale deeply, "Play me, toy with my emotions, my feelings for you. My lo…"  It’s the last thing in the world I should be saying in this moment. I hazard a glance in her direction, lagging behind me as I pull her, more gently now, toward the car.

Her eyes are on mine, unblinking as she takes in a single shaky breath.

Not saying the word doesn’t make the confession less real.

I turn away from her and remain silent as we approach the car. I want to make her sit in the very back and had she been any other bad guy, she would be in the very back. But I also want her closer so that I can see her face, pretend to know what she’s thinking through her facial expressions alone.

My eidetic memory has proven itself valuable beyond remembering the fine details of case reports, book text, and mug shots. I’ve managed to catalog perhaps too many of HG Wells' expressions, recalling what each gentle brow arch, lip smirk, and nose scrunch is most likely to mean.

It also helps my thoughts of her in her absence.

I look into the rear view mirror as I settle into the driver’s seat and catalog the blank expression on her face as she stares blindly forward, into the direction we just came from. She only blinks when I start the car, and more tears cascade down her cheeks.

It’s an hour drive to the nearest airport and, according to Claudia’s itinerary, our flight is in about three.

"Will you apologize to Claudia for me."

Her voice is startling, more so because it lacks any of the heavy emotion she had been choking on earlier. She sounds more herself, whoever she may be.

"Claudia is your saving grace."

"I know she is."

"She deserves more than your apology." I don’t bother acknowledging her previous statement, in favor of reminding Helena of the damage she has already done.

"And what more, pray tell, does Claudia deserve?" She sounds challenging. "To live peacefully, with a safe enough distance between her and the mad woman who nearly destroyed her family?"

"The world, Helena."  I correct her.  "Who nearly destroyed the _world_.  And, no, she _deserves_ to have you in her life, to be another active role model, another person who loves her, that she can turn to when her own darkness creeps up on  _her_ at night.  Or was all of that a lie, too?"

Helena lowers her head at that.

"You’re not the only one with shit, Helena." I say it with more anger than I’ve managed since I forced her to put my own gun to my head. And I’m mad because she’s making me think of things, and people, that I try so very hard not to think about. "You’re not the only one who has lost someone. And I am by no means belittling your loss of Christina, nor do I wish to compare you losing a child to any other losses that have shaken any of our lives." I sigh, shaking my head. "I just… you should have known you could talk to us. You could just _talk_ to us. And maybe I should have made that clearer to you, maybe I lingered too far on the wrong feelings, but I wish you had known. You can _talk_ to me."

The rest of the drive goes by wordlessly.

  
***

  
"I’m afraid I don’t have any identification on me." It’s the only thing Helena says at the airport. I don’t speak to her, just reach into the pocket behind my badge and pull out a duplicate of Helena’s Warehouse-created South Dakota driver’s license.

She gives me her trademark “well then” look as we approach the counter to check in for the flight.

  
  
We’ll get through security faster without having to deal with in-custody transportation paperwork, and, despite everything, I know I can at least trust Helena enough to behave if it means two hours of sitting together on an airplane.  She doesn’t say it now, but every other time we have gone through airport security together, she routinely tells me how much more comfortable she is on one of these flying contraptions when I sit next to her.

 _"And it’s not that I have never had fond dreams of flying through space. It’s the idea that two brothers,_ men _, as incompetent as the Wrights’, have been heralded for this great invention. Bunch of kite flyers, that’s all they were. I’m positive these machines must somehow be flawed."_

I can never stop the laugh. As many times as I have heard the rant and the genuine disgust in her voice, it never fails to amuse me. And here, in this airport, as I sit to re-lace my shoes, I laugh at the rant once more.

Helena sits beside me with her boots in hand and it’s almost easy to forget where we have come from. Where we are going.

She glances my direction when I laugh to myself, hearing her rant play out again in my mind, and she shrugs that shrug she always shrugs at the end of it, as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking. There’s even a hint of a smirk, but she lets it fade away quickly when a young, TSA agent, trying his best to look authoritative and official, returns with my badge, my service weapon, and my Tesla.

"Everything checked out, Agent Bering. We hope you have a good flight and thank you for your service."

"Oh, um, thanks." He’s scampering off to the next big airport security scandal before I even finish.

Helena’s not even looking in my direction anymore. I reach into the small bag that I do have with me and pull out some zip ties.

"HG."

She turns back to me slowly, her face falling at the sight of the ties. Her brows furrow and her eyes dissolve into sadness.

"Protocol is protocol." I say it too softly and I know this by the way her gaze softens into something more familiar and more comfortable. She holds her wrists out and I fix the zip ties over them, taking care not to put them on too tight. When my fingers brush lightly against her wrists, I can feel her tense up. Our eyes meet, but neither of us says a thing.

I hand her my jacket to cover the ties with, both for her own dignity, and to keep any curious TSA out of my hair.

"Let’s go." It’s all I say, picking up my bag, and she’s on her feet, as steady as she can be with her ruined knees, and following me to our gate.  


**

  
On the plane, she’s quiet until we are in the air. She’s a nervous flyer for some reason and has always required constant conversation to ease the anxiety. I don’t know why I expected anything less from her as my prisoner.

"You told Claudia we’d be home soon."

"And we will."

She’s watching me, I imagine, studying my face, my reaction. Why, I don’t know, until she allows her lips to curl into a soft smile and sits back in her seat.

"You mean," she says, " _you'll_ be home soon." I realize it as she says it. " _We_ haven’t got a home."

"You  _had_ a home." I tell her quickly, and sharply.

"It was never my home." Her voice softens. "I mean, sometimes it came close, but Artie was always quick to remind me of my place."

"And apparently with good reason." I’m not looking at her. At least, I’m trying very hard not too look at her.

She sighs and the conversation lulls for a few minutes.

"I need to use the loo."

"Helena. We are forty minutes into a two hour flight. Can you not hold it?"

"I’m sure you don’t want to hear me go on about how difficult it is to stop into a toilet when you’re hellbent on destroying the world."

It’s not funny now, but I’m sure I’ll recall the line later and find it morbidly amusing. For now, I reach for a pair of nail clippers in my bag, then reach over to her bound wrists that are, despite my best efforts, growing red from the contact with the zip ties and clip her free.

I catch her wrists before she can pull her hands away, and run my fingers over the irritated skin.

"It’s fine." She says. "I seem to be allergic to plastic, among so many other things in this 21st century."

"You didn’t bother telling me?" She knows I mean in general and not just the zip ties, still she says,

"I didn’t think you’d care, considering." I squeeze her wrists softly and let her hands drop to her side.

"Since we obviously won’t both fit in the bathroom," I begin.

"Are you certain of that?"

I ignore her. “I’m trusting you to return.” I stand up from my seat and into the aisle to make way for her. “Don’t make me come find you.”

"I’m fresh out of parachutes, My…" She stops short of saying my name and runs a nervous hand through her hair. "I think I’ve tortured you enough for one weekend." And with a sheepish look, she turns her eyes away, and heads down the aisle toward the bathroom.

  
I don’t realize I’m drifting off into sleep until there’s a soft hand placed gently over the back of mine, and I open my eyes to Helena’s. She resembles a ghost, her skin is so pale, exhaustion cloaked beneath feigned resolve. Brown eyes look down on me with too many unspoken dialogues. She sighs and I can tell she’s been watching me for a while.

"I've returned.  Satisfied?" She forces a smile.

 

_No, I’m not satisfied, Helena._

_Last week, I was satisfied. When I could walk out of my bedroom door, knowing you were just down the hall, I was satisfied. When I could hear your laughter echoing up the staircase in my home, a home we shared, every morning, I was satisfied. When you made it a point to have a cup of coffee made and awaiting me, those late mornings after late-night retrievals, when I finally pulled myself out of bed, I was satisfied._

_I was satisfied when I got to split my bagels in two and tell you to eat half or_ else _, only partially channeling my own father’s stubborn insistence that a thin woman is an unhealthy woman. But I knew better, I knew you actually weren’t eating enough, too unused to the food, and the routine.  I was satisfied sharing my meals with you, even venturing out occasionally to try new things with you.  
_

_I was satisfied when we challenged each other to see who, of the two of us, could read the most books in the library for the duration of the year. Satisfied when you’d help me wash dishes, or clean up after one of Claud’s and Pete’s marathon game nights. I was even satisfied doing inventory, as long as it was with you or near you or even in your own, personal, section of the warehouse._

_And I was most satisfied the night you and your bare feet came padding through my bedroom door, dressed only in a borrowed, too-large tee, from my fashion-free college days, and those boy shorts you had discovered on a random shopping trip and loved, rubbing sleep and tears from your eyes, and calling my name through broken sobs. Even then I knew you well enough to know when you had dreams about your little girl. It wasn’t enough that you had lost her once to begin with. You had to go and create that damned time machine to try and save her, only to fail again and again. Only to find her dead again and again. Only to watch her die, again and again._

_How many times had you used that God-forsaken machine? You could never tell me on those nights that you remembered, and I never bothered asking once the nightmares gave way to daylight._

_I was satisfied dropping my book, that I had been reading by lamplight, to the floor, and kicking it under my bed nonchalantly as I got up to catch you because, well, what would you think of me, re-reading your brother’s work as a means of trying to get to know you better? I don’t think I would survive the relentless teasing, I could barely survive the ways you already teased me._

_I was more than satisfied to pull you into me, and surprised at how easily your body collapsed into mine, arms snaking around my waist, hands clutching desperately to the back of my shirt, fingers digging into skin through 100% cotton._

_"Oh Myka."_

_I admit, even hearing the tremble in your voice as you sobbed my name was satisfying. Holding you closer, with your face buried into my shoulder, shaking uncontrollably and desperate for comfort, was satisfying. Closing my bedroom door and pulling you into my bed, wrapping my arms tightly around you, and holding you later and later into the night, that was satisfying._

_"I miss her so much."_

_"I know, Helena."_

_"I want to go back. To a happier day."_

_"You can’t do that."_

_You_ could _do it, I know that much, but you wouldn’t survive it if you did. None of us would survive it._

_I knew that much then. I guess I should have known, too, after the Medusa had revealed to you the exact thing you had wanted, the exact thing that I knew would break you. I guess I should have known then, but I was satisfied enough that you were there, with me, with Pete. Adventuring, saving a little piece of the world._

_Listening to your unsteady breath, when you finally fell asleep, was satisfying. Smoothing back sweat-dampened hair, tucking displaced strands behind your ear, satisfying. Pressing my lips to the damp skin of your forehead, over your wildly dreaming eyes behind closed lids, the tip of your nose, a flushed and overheated cheek, your soft and tear-dampened lips; and kissing all of these places._ That _was satisfying._

_Hearing that deep sigh, a wave of relief washing over you, as your eyes stopped flickering so quickly beneath closed lids; watching the faintest smile forming on your lips; the feel of your body, finally relaxing completely against mine, your fists unclenching fabric as palms opened up and warm, sweaty hands found their way onto bare skin; tucking your face into the crook of my neck, with lips pressed, unmoving against sensitive skin; the quiet whimper that escapes through your nose with a small puff of air against my jaw; all of these things, and all the seconds in-between these things, were satisfying._

_And satisfied, I closed my eyes and began drifting into my own light sleep. So satisfied, even, that I almost don’t hear it, but your lips moving slowly against my neck bring me far enough back to consciousness that I catch the tail end of your sleepy confession._

_"I do love you, Myka."_

_You kiss my neck. So soft, even, that I don’t think you know it isn’t a dream. And I smile, close my eyes, inhale your skin. I wonder if you dream of me often. How often, Helena? What do you dream of me? How do you dream of me?_

_I match our breathing. When I exhale, you exhale. When I inhale, you inhale. When I pull you closer, you hold on tighter. It’s perfect. It’s the way it should be. It’s completely and utterly satisfying._

_In that moment, yes, I was satisfied._  
  
  
  
“Ma’am, you need to find your seat.”

An older, red-haired stewardess, with the voice box from hell, I imagine, breaks me from my reverie.

"Ma’am, your friend is trying to take her seat." When my eyes focus, I realize my gaze hasn’t broken from Helena’s.

"It’s quite all right." She says to the stewardess whose face turns questioning when my eyes finally reach hers. "She’s had a long weekend.  Give her some time." And with that, the stewardess has walked out of view.

Helena reaches a hand toward me but retreats when I flinch.

"Don’t." Is all I say.

"You’re crying."

I reach up to touch wetness on my cheeks and quickly wipe the tears away before standing to allow Helena back in her seat.

I sit back down with a huff and close my eyes again.

"I’m sor…"

"I still have my Tesla."

She stays quiet.

  
  
I can’t sleep, but I keep my eyes closed. I replay the events at Yellowstone in my mind on endless loop. I can hear the anger in what Helena had thought to be her last stand. The more I see it, the longer I look, the more I feel my own panic set in. My desperation to save not just the world, but to save her. Selfishly, I wonder how she had the nerve to think she could disappear from my life and then end it, so suddenly, so tragically.  I realize that same thought is what drove me to put my own weapon to my head.

Next, there’s Claudia’s voice, recounting all of Helena’s turmoil. She does a better job of not only remembering these things, but keeping them in the forefront of her mind, than I could ever accomplish with my eidetic memory. She sees beyond the easy labels of crazy, and evil, and into the deeper diagnoses of grieving and suicidal.

She’s not wrong in what she says. Helena has cried the world’s loudest cry for help, and she’s about to lose everything she’s known in this new world in response.  And to what fate? Re-bronzing?  Prison?

Whatever it is, wherever it is, isolation is guaranteed.  She’ll be alone again.  Suffering through her own thoughts again.  Drowning in her own grief.  Again.

  
When the plane finally begins its descent into South Dakota, the air is choppy. The plane jerks enough that I open my eyes just as the seatbelt sign dings on and the stewardesses are making a hasty return to their own seats.

The pilot keys into the intercom to announce high winds and high pressure. He reassures us that we’ll be down on the ground in no time. The rest of his speech is lost when the plane makes a sudden drop and rows of people react audibly.

I glance to Helena, who has remained quiet, but she has tears streaming down her cheeks, despite her stoic expression. I imagine she’s grandstanding in her own mind again. Almost willing the plane to go down. But her hands are running worriedly through one another and when the plane jerks once again, she’s clutching her chair.

I’ve had worse landings than this, in far smaller planes, in less developed nations with non-existent airports.

I set my hand softly over the back of hers and once the contact registers, the hand relaxes. I curl my hand over the backs of her fingers, the tips of my fingers sliding gently down and across her knuckles, until she releases her hold on the seat and turns her palm upward. I slip my hand into hers and our fingers instantly intertwine. She never looks up at me and she doesn’t stop crying, so I imagine the tears are not for what she’s perceived as her impending death by a man-made flying contraption with a major emphasis on man.

She’s crying for something else altogether.

  
I hold her hand as we leave the plane. I don’t even think twice about it. We walk through the airport together this way, and she remains quiet. Maybe thinking that if she says something, I’ll remember what I’m doing and bind her wrists again.

I know what I’m doing. I won’t let go of her, yet, and it takes us entirely too long to exit the airport.  
  


The wind is strong as we leave the airport and head to the garage. The large SUV is exactly where Artie and I left it earlier in the day. I open the passenger side door, and only now does Helena look up at me, lingering momentarily before she squeezes my hand in silent thanks, and we break contact.  She she says nothing. We are so good at saying nothing, it seems. She gets inside and I close the door behind her.

When I’m seated, I start the ignition and absently tell her, “Put your seatbelt on.” She won’t remember if I don’t tell her. She never does. And no one else ever bothers to remind her.

Except Claudia, of course.

It’s another two hour drive to the Warehouse. I call Claudia on the Farnsworth before we take off, ask how Pete’s doing, tell her to leave some hydrogen peroxide in Artie’s office, along with a fresh change of clothes from HG’s room, and to drive safe. After that, the Farnsworth goes off again.

"Yes, Claud?"

"Agent Bering." I’m met with the familiarly stoic face and steadied voice.

"Mrs. Frederic." I correct myself. "How are you?" The greeting is mostly made in jest, I know she won't answer it.

"You have HG Wells in your custody, I presume."

"I do."

"Bring her straight to the warehouse, please. They’ll be waiting when you arrive." It sounds like a demand, but her voice is softer than usual, something akin to understanding.

"And who, exactly, are ‘they’?" I glance to Helena but she’s looking out of her window.

"Agent Bering." Mrs. Frederic’s voice softens even more when she says my name now, it's almost startling. "It’s a long drive. Use it to say goodbye." And with that, the screen goes dark.

I sigh. Helena sighs.

"Goodbye." She says flippantly, still looking out of the window as I put the car into reverse.

  
  
Thirty minutes in, we start arguing. I’m broaching the topic of her attempted suicide by world annihilation, she’s telling me not to go there. We aren’t prisoner and guard here, anymore, we’re friends falling apart. Some time after a screaming match, we are both in tears, as if we can possibly cry any more. We don’t talk for twenty minutes. I almost drive us off the road because I can’t see well enough through bleary eyes to avoid hitting some asshole in a Celica who doesn’t believe in a solid yellow line.

She offers to take the wheel and I laugh because I’m sure the Regents would love to see us pulling up to the warehouse with her in the driver’s seat. On second thought, I’m almost tempted, but my third thought reminds me that I’ll need to be in their good graces when we do arrive.

  
  
“There’s a journal in my room.” It’s the first thing she says in ten minutes. “Under one of the floor boards, near the window.”

"How cliche." But she doesn’t get it because she hasn’t seen the millions of movies that involve somebody hiding something under a floorboard in their house. In her day, it was just practical.

"Keep it for me, please."

I’m quiet for a moment, glancing her way.  Her gaze is back outside the window.

"I don’t care if you read it."

"Does that mean you _want_ me to read it?"  She turns to look at me now.

"There’s a very high probability that we will never see each other again. So, the choice is yours." She sighs. "If I’m lucky, they’ll execute me…"

"Helena, I don't know if you know this, but you're being a drama queen."  It's meant to be lighthearted but then I'm not so sure she understands "drama queen".  She just shrugs.

"I said if I’m lucky." She smirks now.  "I don’t know if _you’ve_ noticed, Darling, but I don’t have very much of that sort of thing in my life."

  
  
  
When the warehouse comes into view, there are a couple of SUVs parked outside, plus Pete’s car, Mrs. Frederic's limousine. I don’t recognize all of the men, but I gather some are Regents, some are armed reinforcements, and some are just goons.

"Well, if this is to be the last thing I say to you, I hope you would at least allow me the honor of saying your name once more."

"Wait."

I park the car alongside Pete’s and get out, bee-lining for Mrs. Frederic. For once, she’s startled by someone else when I barely stop myself on the edge of her personal space.

"I need ten minutes. Inside. That’s all."

"What, Myka…?" Pete begins to protest but I hold up a hand to stop him and he does, surprisingly, stop.

"Ten minutes."

The older woman looks beyond me to the car where Helena sits, then back to the waiting men with a nod.

"Take twenty." She says softly.

"Thank you."

Back at the car, I open Helena’s door and help her out. There’s no shortage of stares, and Pete is on the edge of saying something as we walk by until I shoot him a glare so unlike me that he actually steps back and behind Mrs. Frederic.

Helena is all but limping now, as I lead her through the umbilicus and into Artie’s office. On his desk, a change of clothes, a first aid kit, the hydrogen peroxide, and an envelope labeled “Bering and Wells” in Claudia’s typical inventor chicken scratch.

"Pants off."

"Myka, I don’t think we have  _that_ much time." I’m surprised she's found her sense of humor, and so close to meeting her fate, with all of the melancholy daggers she’s been throwing out left and right.

"Just take them off." She does as told, taking off her boots first, then revealing her bruising, scraped, and bloodied knees. "Sit down." I point to Artie’s chair and she hesitates. "Sit."

She complies.

I hand her clothes over to her and she changes her top while I clean her scraped knees.

"Why are you doing this?"

I just shake my head and focus on the task, pulling a few pebbles from her knees and tossing them in the trash alongside bloodied paper towels.

"You don’t have any 19th century blood born diseases, do you?" I tease. She smiles at that and I tape small pieces of gauze to either knee. "Because I didn’t use gloves."

"According to my warehouse check up, I’m healthier than reasonably acceptable for someone who has not been exposed to a century’s worth of mutated germs."

"How many vaccines did you get?"

"Too many to count."

I nod and stand up, only allowing my eyes to linger momentarily on her exposed legs before turning back to Artie’s desk. “You can put your pants on now.”

"You're sure you don't want to have another look?" I ignore her question in favor of opening the envelope that Claudia has left behind. Inside there’s a folded piece of glossy paper, a photo. I pull it out to better see it and I can’t help the tears that fall down my cheeks.

"What have you got there?" Helena is suddenly beside me, too close, and stretching to look over my shoulder.

"It’s nothing." I say, refolding the photo of her and I together, shoving it into my back pocket and walking away from her. "We should get going. Helena."

"Of course." She nods walking to where I stand in front of the door. "See you tomorrow, then?"

"Helena."

"Myka, I…"

I stare at her hard.  She doesn’t finish but turns to face the door.

"You did this, you know?" She doesn’t turn around. "I’m trying to understand, Helena. I’m trying really hard to understand why."

"Stop trying." She says. "You won’t ever know the answer."

I inhale deeply.

"Then I guess it’s on me."

She turns at that and narrows her eyes at me. “It’s not on you, Myka. This doesn’t have to do with you.”

"I couldn’t see it." I tell her, shaking my head. I close my eyes and let tears burn and then cool as they fall down my cheeks and to the floor beneath me.

"This isn’t about you, Myka." Her voice is closer now and I feel the warmth of her presence just in front of me. In seconds, her hands are against my cheeks, cradling, and all I want is to fall into her arms and hold her and fix all of this  _bullshit_ between us with… with what? My irresistible charm? I have nothing.  She tried to end me.  I'm entirely out of moves.

_I don’t know how to fix it._

"You can’t fix it." I realize only now that I said the last thing out loud. Helena wraps her arms around me, over my shoulders, although she’s just short enough that she can't comfortably reach. I bend into her hold and I’m sure we cry so long that we have surpassed the twenty minutes given to us by Mrs. Frederic, but nobody comes in.

When I feel Helena’s lips against my cheek, my body shakes.  She kisses me there, it's too lovingly, and I immediately break off our contact.

"It’s time to go."  I whisper.

"Myka."  It's too much, the way my name sounds between her lips, barely audible.

I shake my head.

"I can’t trust you." I tell her. "I can’t trust myself around you. I can’t be left alone with you. You cloud my judgment. You break my resolve. You… you’re…" Suddenly the office is stuffy and overheated and I’m feeling backed into a corner. I rush around her to the keypad and enter the code in quickly, only feeling some relief when the door swings open to the brightly lit umbilicus. "Let’s go."  I try to demand it.  I fail at that, too.

She hesitates. For a split second I worry that bringing her in here has only given her ample time to find and learn how to use a stray artifact against me. She could do it quite easily, immobilize me and be lost in the warehouse for days plotting her next grand exit.

But she steadies herself, squares her shoulders, and walks slowly past me and out of the office. When we reach the exit, she stops me short of opening the door. Everyone is waiting on the other side.

"Wait... Myka..." And suddenly there’s desperation in her voice, as if she’s just realized she may be walking to her end, like an inmate on death row but without the decency of an appeal or a least meal. "I have to… I need to tell you that I…"

I shake my head.

"That I love…"

"No." I say it harshly and through gritted teeth. "You don’t get to tell me that, Helena. Not right fucking now when you’re about to disappear to God only knows where."

"Myka, I’m sorry." Tears fall but I can’t help the anger inside of me.

"Not _now_ , Helena."

"I do love you, Myka."

Those words echo in my mind. They take me back to that night, not even a week ago, when she fell into my arms, into my bed, fragile and half-asleep. My heart swells with the feelings of that evening, the way her hands stayed pressed to my back through the night, gently cascading across my abdomen every now and then to startle me from my sleep.

"Fuck you, Helena."

I don’t say it to her, so much as at what she’s doing to me. Or what she's making me want to do to her.

And it’s all I can say before my hands are on her shoulders, pushing her against the door of the umbilicus, praying that it remains closed with the force I put into pinning her there. She reaches up to cup my cheeks, to pull me closer but I grab her by her wrists and push her back up against the door, taking care not to hurt her though not giving her the satisfaction of touching me.

I lean in close to her, drawn in by my own relentless memories. Our foreheads touch and she’s crying more now, saying my name in that breathless way, telling me she loves me, trying to kiss me.

"Stop it." I cry.

"I love you, Myka."

"Shut up."

I press my nose to hers, tightening my grip on her wrists and moving her arms against the wall, above her head. She leans her face in close to mine but I turn away and her lips barely graze my cheek.

"Please, Myka." Her cries turn to sobbing. "Let me kiss you goodbye."

I shake my head, turning back to her. “No.”

"Please." Her face is entirely wet with tears. "If I never see you again, I don’t know what I’ll do."

I lean in impossibly close to her, my want for her insatiable, her lips beckoning for some piece of me. I press my hips into hers, mostly to steady her, and she almost collapses at the contact.

"I can’t." I whisper. Our lips brush, a whimper escapes through her open mouth as she tries to lean into this kiss again. This kiss, I decided long ago, that isn’t going to happen.

It cannot happen.

I move so close to her, that when I start to say one of the last things that I’m going to say to her, I say it directly against her lips.

"Why?" She cries. "Why are you doing this to me?"

I shake my head. “Not to you, Helena.” I say it so softly that I’m not sure I’ve even said it, and I wet my lips and I do kiss the corner of her mouth. She tries, desperately, to catch my lips with hers but can only turn away as I begin to dot her jaw line with soft kisses, leaving an invisible trail to her ear. I let my lips linger there and whisper softly, “I’m doing this to me. This is my punishment."  I kiss her ear and she exhales another desperate whimper.  "Not having you is my punishment.  It's what I deserve.”

"Myka, you’re not meant to be punished for this." She’s more coherent now, fully aware, no longer drowning in mutual lust, but still clinging on, and leaning in too close. "This is _my_ pain. This is about _me_. It’s not about you."

I can hear the tinge of anger in her voice. It brings me partially back to my senses and I push away from her.

"It could have been _our_ pain." I reach into my back pocket and pull the folded photo out, holding it up for her to see. "But you keep it."

I step closer to her and tuck the photo into her bra. She only stands there shaking her head. 

"Myka. I…"

At that moment the door swings open and the Regents' goons come rushing in. They’re all brute and muscle and carelessness, and they cuff her wrists too tight, pat her down too rough, and touch far too liberally.

"She doesn’t have anything on her." I tell them. She winces when one hand strays too far up her inner thigh and I catch the offending owner’s other hand and twist it back just far enough to make his eyes burn with tears. He yells out like a child. "I _said_ she doesn’t have anything. Touch her again and I will break your wrist."

"Myka!" At Pete’s voice now in the doorway, I let the man go. I lean in to Helena as the uninjured goon decides to forego the rest of his pat down.

"Are you okay?" I turn her toward me, and cup her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me.  She nods but says nothing and closes her eyes.  The lack of fight in her is unnerving, but I wipe what's left of the tears from her face and let her go.  "Okay."

And before I can think of anything else to say, they’re leading her out of the warehouse and away from me.  
  


I can’t watch, so I don’t. If she bothers looking back, I don’t know it. All I do know is that this entire ordeal has left a too sour taste in my mouth, the power being held within the warehouse, the power being masked by the Regents in the absence of an actual judicial system, and the power Helena has so easily had over me.  She used me, she used my love for her, she took advantage of my feelings, and my stupidly untrained and too-needy heart almost catapulted the entire world into a premature ice age that would have brought about the very end of civilization. 

By the time the dust has settled from the caravan of armed guards that have taken Helena away, I’m in tears again.

"C’mon." Pete says, placing what's meant to be a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Let’s get you home."

But it’s not home to me anymore.


End file.
